My coffee and I

I was at a conference today. And I had to rush to the venue without my morning cup of coffee. Since I was already late,  I had to attend one whole session in the morning without it. By the time it was over, I was trying hard to focus and also nursing a bad headache. Lunch was then served and figure this, there was no coffee anywhere in sight! I had something to eat, drank a lot of water but my headache still continued. At 10 minutes before the next session, I was frantically looking for any source of coffee that I could find but I couldn't find any!

So, I spent the next session fantasizing about my next cup of coffee. That got me thinking: I don't know at what point in life I got so addicted to this brown/black liquid, my life has never been the same again. Don't get me wrong, I use the term "addiction" quite lightly. My journey in graduate school would have never been the same without it. Two cups a day were a given and attending any seminar would mean gulping down some more just before it started. If I was writing something, that would call for a venti-sized cup of glorious coffee. I could point you to places for the best coffee and I could also tell you which talks served good free coffee. It was almost something that we, as grad students bonded over. To cut a long story short I couldn't have survived grad school without it.

When I say "addicted", I mean it quite lightly because for the two years when I was pregnant and breastfeeding Pickles, I had stopped drinking coffee. Absolutely! And guess what, I actually wrote out my entire PhD thesis without a drop of it! I'm proud of it because if you've not been there, you have no idea what I'm talking about. It is no trivial matter, this. Once I had my first cup after the long hiatus, there was no going back. We were united again like we were never apart, my coffee and I.

Back to this afternoon, when finally the second session was coming to an end, I had made up my mind that if there was no coffee, I would just leave. Anyway, my brain was almost useless by then. But somebody heard my prayers, and there it was, that aroma. At that point, it was the sweetest smell in the universe.  I went seeking it and I found my salvation. It's another matter that the coffee was quite bad but I couldn't have asked for anything more. I was happy again. Happy to go back, sit through and actually enjoy some more talks.

So, what's your poison?